Missing
by ficdirectory
Summary: The team goes to Texas after an unsub goes on a killing rampage. His four young children are missing and the BAU is determined to find them. WARNING: Child abuse. **2nd Place: Best Casefic in the 2011 Criminal Minds Favorite Fic Awards at LiveJournal**
1. The Case

_We worry about what a child will become tomorrow, yet we forget that he is someone today._ - Stacia Tauscher

* * *

><p><em>The car ride is bumpy. Crunchy. The sun is going to sleep. Maybe so are they. Maybe they are going to a very special place. Maybe it's a surprise. Maybe asking nice will help.<em>

_"Is it secret?" Standing on the seat. The car's still moving. Pulled down. Scared faces._

_"Talk again, and watch what happens!"_

_A big breath in. A hand stopping the words. A head shaking no. Scared eyes. Quiet._

_Stop._

_Hands reaching. Hands pulling back like a fight. But big hands always win. There is a knife. There is red. The car door opens. Little hands push. Little voice screams._

_"Run!"_

_The ground is sharp. It bites. It hurts. Can't run. No hiding place. Just open._

_Big arms grab. Now it's time._ _Not a surprise. Fight. Push. _

_The knife comes anyway._

_Go to sleep, just like the sun._

* * *

><p>The call comes at 3:20 AM. Hotch knows it's not good. Nothing good comes to him at 3:20 in the morning.<p>

"Hotch. We've got a case. It's bad."

It's JJ. It's 3:20 in the morning. Of course it's bad.

Within twenty minutes, they have all gathered in the conference room, ready to work, but undeniably exhausted. When the first image comes up on the screen, however, they all snap to attention.

"I just got a call from a detective in Houston, Texas. Eight hours ago, six people were murdered and a seventh badly injured. 68-year-old Maxine Keller, 47-year-old Nina Ellis, 25-year-old Taryn Michaels, eight-year-old Alisha Michaels and six-year-old Kendra Michaels, and 21-year-old Janice McAffrey. All brutally stabbed in the face and chest. The crime scene photos indicate the younger girls were sexually abused. Benjamin Jackson, 23, the final victim, was badly injured, gunshot blast to the chest. He's currently in surgery, but was able to identify his attacker."

"Wait. If the unsub's already identified, then why call us?" Reid asks, sitting forward.

"Jackson identified a coworker, 26-year-old, Michael McAffrey. " JJ continues seriously. "All the previous victims were related to our unsub. In-laws, nieces, wife… They all lived in the same neighborhood within miles of each other. According to Jackson and evidence found on scene at the McAffrey house, they have children."

Hotch lets out a breath he doesn't know he's been holding. Now, the screen in front of them shows four young faces. All were beautiful, sitting close together, with light brown skin and warm dark eyes. He can also see signs of abuse. Not obvious, but they are there. The smile on the oldest boy looks frozen, and fearful. The older girl looks caught off-guard, the younger boy is possibly the saddest child Hotch has ever seen. Only the youngest girl looks unaffected by whatever chaos is going on in the home. She is laughing.

"Five-year-old Elijah, four-year-old Zahara, three-year-old Josiah and two-year-old Amira are currently listed as missing with the Houston PD. There's an Amber Alert out for all of them but so far, nothing."

"It's been eight hours…" Emily offers skeptical and sad. "They could be dead."

Rossi leans forward. "Garcia? What do we know about this Michael McAffrey?"

There is the click of computer keys and then a tense and serious voice. "He has a wrap sheet as long as my arm. A history of drunk-and-disorderly conduct, drugs…"

"Domestic abuse?" Morgan interjects.

"Nothing official," Garcia shakes her head. "Looks like they caught him trying to cross the border into Mexico."

"Yeah," JJ nods. "He's in custody of the police department. They found him bloody and covered with superficial wounds. He insists it was a drug deal gone bad and that the dealer took his kids as collateral. He says he has no idea where they are."

"What about the other murders?" Hotch asks.

"He maintains he knows nothing about them. Blames the same people he says took his children…" JJ says wearily.

"Those wounds don't fit that M.O." Emily points out. "The kills are angry, rage-filled, and most important? They're personal. You don't target only women and girls in family and stab and slash them multiple times when one good cut would take care of them, especially the little girls…"

"He's probably high out of his mind…" Derek observes.

"The blood wasn't his," JJ says and crosses her arms as if to ward off a chill. If those kids are alive, they don't have long at all.

"Wheels up in 30," Hotch says, already trying to focus his attention on this case, and not his own five-year-old, at home, waiting for him.

* * *

><p>"It doesn't make sense," Reid muses on the flight to Houston. "Taking four kids under the age of six as collateral for drug money…"<p>

"The blood on Michael McAffrey makes it sound like we're going to be recovering bodies, not kids," Emily repeats, stifling a yawn.

"We operate under the assumption that they're alive until we have a concrete reason to think otherwise. Garcia's running background on the family, trying to see if we can find something to use as leverage against McAffrey. I'll deal with the interrogation. JJ, talk to remaining family, see what you can find out. Dave and Prentiss, go to the Michaels residence. See what you can piece together there. Morgan and Reid, the McAffrey house."

* * *

><p><em>The grass is poking. The flies are buzzing. <em>

_There is too much wet. _

_Go and see. Go and touch. Go and say wake up._

_Next, there is too much still. Too much cold. _

_Crawl far away. Fall asleep again in the dark._

* * *

><p>Hotch takes a deep breath before he walks into the interrogation room. He's going to need to be steady for this one, and right now, he does not feel steady. Right now he feels off-balance. Horrified. Angry.<p>

He is convinced, looking through the window at the self-important smirk on McAffrey's face that Hotch is not dealing with a grieving father who lost his family, but a family annihilator who did all of this…and thinks he can get away with it.

Slowly, the images of the four missing kids filled Hotch's mind. Elijah with his gap-toothed smile. Zahara with her startled expression. Josiah and his big brown eyes and constant pout. And Amira, with her wild curls, who looked to be in the middle of laughing at a great joke.

Hotch vows to find them all. He vows to bring them home.


	2. The Impact

_It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. _- Frederick Douglass

There are some doors better off unopened…Some things best left undiscovered. Hotch knows this now, but the knowledge came too late. It came with a cost. Searching for these kids is like searching for Jack in those endless rooms, except that the walls have fallen down and the search area has expanded indefinitely. It hurts to remember this terror. It clutches at his chest. But he forces himself to keep going. Keep asking these questions. Keep enduring the sick and twisted looks of pleasure on this man's face. Because, maybe, it will get him somewhere.

Hotch glances at his wrist, checking for the time. 11:30. The kids have been gone roughly 16 hours. His team is no closer to finding them. The crime scenes are gruesome and the only clues they have unearthed so far are unsettling in nature.

No overnight bags or backpacks have been taken. No clothing is unaccounted for. Toothbrushes still in the bathroom. Which means, they weren't taken on a hasty trip. Likely, they are dealing with something much darker than kidnapping.

* * *

><p><em>How does the sun feel? <em>

_The sun is burning. Too shiny. Too hot. It makes the scary things real. It makes the car feeling come back. The thirsty feeling. Try to talk. Try to get up. Can't. _

_Look around. Is Daddy coming?_

_Look around. Where are they? _

_The big dirty place for garbage. Why did they get thrown away? _

_A house is right over there. Too far to go._

_Sleepy again. But still thinking. Why did they get thrown away? Look over by the flies. Eyes are too heavy. Try to get up. Try to talk. Too tired. Broken…_

_Maybe they all got broken. Maybe that's why they got thrown away._

_Sleeping. The sun stays awake._

* * *

><p>Hotch has a terrible headache. He needs to talk to Jack but refuses to call his son in the middle of a case this bad. He doesn't want any of the things he sees to somehow seep into Jack's consciousness. He doesn't think he can handle it if Jack asks if he is getting the bad guys. Because this time, they have the bad guy. They just don't have the kids the bad guy hurt. He rubs his temples.<p>

"Hotch. You okay?" Rossi asks. He is back from the Michaels crime scene. Everyone is already reconvening and Hotch has made absolutely no progress with McAffrey.

"I'm fine," Hotch insists, though it's clear he isn't.

"Why don't you let me take over the interrogation for a while?" Dave offers. "Take a break."

"Four kids are missing, Dave. I don't have time for a break," he snaps.

Reid comes back from the McAffrey house looking green. Morgan is solemn. Emily is, somehow, calm and focused, despite the horrors she encountered at the Michaels home with Rossi. A mother stabbed is bad enough. Four generations slaughtered in one house is something else entirely. Those little girls are something else entirely. Hotch shakes his head, clearing it.

"Good news is, none of the kids have known medical conditions. All of them are strong. If they're out there anywhere, they have a good chance."

"Survival skills are high," JJ offers, wanting to keep morale up as well. "It sounds like the five-year-old is pretty much in charge of all the younger kids when the parents went out. Good relationship with their mother, though. She was in a tough spot. Wanting to leave but with no resources and four kids to support alone…"

"Good. Let's keep working," Hotch says.

* * *

><p><em>It's raining. It's pouring. <em>

_Lick the water dots. _

_There. That's better._

_Then it's all done. No more water dots._

_More sun. More sleep._

* * *

><p>"Hotch! Are you all right?" Emily asks, catching up with him outside the station. He just needs some air. That's all. Or so he tells himself. As usual, Emily is onto him. As usual, his whole team is onto him.<p>

A light rain is falling, and he thinks of the children. Maybe out somewhere in it. Not dressed warmly enough. All alone, or with each other? Alive or not?

He shakes his head because he can't speak around the lump in his throat.

Emily crosses her arms. Remains a few feet away, silent. She waits. When he doesn't speak, she finally breaks the silence. "You know, JJ's having a really tough time with this?" she asks, and goes on as if Hotch has responded. "She keeps thinking of Henry. Of what kind of father could do this."

Wordless, he nods. He knows what she's doing…exactly what she's doing, but he finds, he doesn't care. He does not add that he is all too familiar with what kind of father could do horrible things to his children. Hotch had been raised by one himself. He knew that terror. Lived with it every day until his father died. Even now, sometimes, he dreams of it, jerking awake. Reliving the nightmare of his youth.

"But the thing is…" Emily continues, undeterred, "JJ is a great mom. She doesn't have to worry. Just because she works around crazies doesn't mean they are going to rub off on her." A pause. "This guy isn't your father. _You_ are nothing like your father."

Hotch's gaze snaps to Emily's face. Slowly, the heat leaves his eyes. She is right. And just because this monster is similar to his own father is no reason not to focus all of his energy on finding these kids.

Just the opposite.

"Thank you," he says, offering another small nod, and then making his way back inside.


	3. The Rescue

_The family is a haven in a heartless world. - _Christopher Lasch

"_Where_ are they?" Hotch insists, bringing his hand down forcefully on the table.

It has been hours. Nothing has changed. Michael McAffrey remains silent but for the maddening smirk on his face. He knows. He knows exactly where those children are and he refuses to give it up. Hotch has exhausted everything he knows to do.

He knows that by now they won't get anything out of him. What they need is proof. They need to find these kids.

* * *

><p>Garcia parks herself in front of the computerized geographical profile that Reid has come up with and stares at the space they have narrowed down. It is still too many miles to cover in time. It might already be too late. She looks at the numerous clocks on her wall and curses under her breath.<p>

Those kids… They've now been out there for over 30 hours. Their first guess has to be right.

* * *

><p>"It's no good," McAffrey says smugly, leaning back in his chair. "This ain't my fault. Those kids…they run off all the time…"<p>

Hotch seizes this, hoping that the suspect will reveal more than he is planning to. "When they run off, where do they typically go?"

"They go back behind the houses, cut through other peoples' yards. The park. The elementary school. Sometimes, they're off in the middle of nowhere…"

Hotch is on his feet and out the door. Emily, right on his heels.

"Garcia," he says. "Is there an elementary school and a park in the unsub's comfort zone?"

He hears keys clicking and is already in an SUV, speeding in the general direction.

"Bingo," she says, her voice tense.

"Is there any place near those locations where the kids might have gone. Where he might have taken them?" She is looking, but it's Reid who speaks up first.

"There's a dump," he says seriously.

"Floor it," Garcia commands. "I'll tell you where."

* * *

><p>It's now just past 7:30 AM. A day and a half after the kids went missing. Hotch pulls into the lot haphazardly. Emily, Rossi, JJ, Morgan and Reid are all here to help in the search.<p>

"Spread out," he urges.

Hotch stalks the tall grass, his gun drawn. He can hear the rest of his team calling the names of the children, leaving intermittent pauses. He can hear his own breath in the whispering of the grass. No evidence of children anywhere. He breathes. Tries to get control over the sinking feeling in his gut.

"If they're here, he's hidden them damn well," Rossi mutters, joining Hotch.

* * *

><p><em>Big voices. Daddy voices and Mommy voices.<em>

_The Daddy voices are scary._

_Just don't move. Not one bit. Then the Daddy voices won't see. Maybe. _

_The sun is too shiny so eyes close, too. That will help. That will make it all better. Nobody can see if the magic happens. The going-away magic. So try very hard. Try to keep the magic going. Don't make noise._

_Footsteps come closer. Can't help it. Curl tighter._

_It's a Mommy voice. Mommies are nice. But then a Daddy voice comes, too._

_Try to get away._

_Should have run._

* * *

><p>Emily feels her stomach roll. The stench in the ravine is unbelievably thick. Like decomposing trash and something else. Blinking, she squints. Sees something near the bottom. Not in the dump at all but down the hill.<p>

Without hesitation, Emily gets down there. She calls it in quietly so the others know. "I've got something."

Tentatively, she makes her way down the embankment where the image she thought she saw comes clear. Swarms of flies. The grass caked in blood. Three little bodies, and a few feet away, a fourth. There is no need to check the first three. There are no signs of life and she is not a coroner or an ER doctor. But then the fourth little body curls up tightly. Emily is stunned.

It is the smallest child. The little girl, Amira, with a vivid red throat wound that has somehow congealed so it isn't bleeding freely anymore. Her once-white nightgown is stained red. When her eyes pop open, terrified, Emily speaks gently, trying to put her at ease.

"We need a medic," she relays calmly so her team will hear. "I've got the two-year-old here." She kneels beside the little girl, addressing her directly. "Hey…It's okay. My name is Emily. I'm here to help you."

_Not Daddy._

Emily is stunned. There is no sound at all from the tiny mouth but the child's eyes are terrified, and reading her lips is enough.

"No, honey. Don't worry. It's just my friends and me. We're good guys, okay? We've been trying to find you. Amira. What happened? Can you tell me?"

_Daddy did it._ Amira mouthed drawing her finger in front of her own throat.

* * *

><p>Hotch made his way quickly down the embankment, in time to see the carnage, and Emily on her knees beside the lone survivor. He doesn't know how she survived when none of the older children made it. According to the dispatch Emily made, the child has a massive throat wound, and no ability to vocalize at all.<p>

He draws closer, and senses commotion. Before he can go any further, Rossi's hand is on his shoulder. "Come on," he says, leading Hotch away.

* * *

><p>"Hey, Hotch and Rossi? Can you send JJ down here?" Emily calls.<p>

She wishes she didn't have to. No one should be so near this much carnage, but it's obvious that little Amira is terrified of men. She's started thrashing, trying to get up. Trying to run. It breaks Emily's heart to restrain her so she will not hurt herself.

"It's okay. It's okay," Emily reassures over and over. "I'm protecting you okay. I'm a good guy and my job is to make sure no bad guys can hurt you, okay? You don't need to fight. Just relax." There is more thrashing but not much. The tension eases out of the tiny body. "My friend, JJ? She's going to come and sit with us. Just us girls, okay?"

_No bad guys?_ Amira's lips form the words and Emily notices for the first time, the tears on the child's cheeks.

"Nope. I promise," she vows.

Picking up her phone, Emily punches a button. "Garcia? It's Em. Do me a favor and make sure the ambulance on the way to the scene has at least one woman on board? Thanks."

Emily can hear JJ approaching. Talking quietly to the child about the cartoon on her nightgown, and asking if that's her favorite. JJ tells Amira about Henry, and what he likes to do. Playing tag. Helping her do things. Watching whatever cartoon features huge-headed bug-eyed little girls with different colored hair.

And Emily's heart stutters in her chest, when Amira glances up at JJ, nods, and smiles.


	4. The Aftermath

_Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see. _- Neil Postman

Time passes. Not much, but it passes. If Haley's death disrupted his sleep, then this crime scene completely obliterated it. He develops insomnia so that he will not dream, because the nightmares are horrific. The images of three dead children and one, writhing on the ground, in fear of him, are too much.

The rest of the team seems to have moved on, or maybe, the more likely situation, is that Hotch doesn't want to look too closely at them. He can barely handle his own baggage from this case, so how would it be possible for him to shoulder any of theirs.

It has gotten so bad that even Jack notices. At first, Hotch tries to downplay it.

"It's nothing, buddy. Daddy's just thinking about work stuff."

"What kind of work stuff? Like catching bad guys?" Jack asks, intrigued. He glances up from his superheroes. His makeshift dishtowel cape lies against his back. He is clearly waiting for an answer.

Hotch gets down on the floor beside his son and starts to play, too. "No, not about bad guys. Something very sad happened to a little girl. We found her and she's okay now but it's still hard to think about."

Okay is a relative term. It has been a couple weeks. Amira is still in Pediatric Intensive Care, recovering from her injuries. Somehow, she survived surgery. Physically, she would make it. But emotionally? There is no way to know.

"If she's okay then why are you sad?" Jack asked, locking a bad guy safely in a Lego jail.

"I don't know," Hotch says honestly.

* * *

><p>As if it was destined, the BAU gets another case in a suburb of Houston, Texas. This one doesn't involve children, thank God. But it is no less complex. No walk in the park. Still, they rely on each other's strengths. They work together. They bring in the unsub, and this time, all the people in harm's way make it out alive.<p>

Before they leave to fly back to Virginia, Rossi stops them all short. "I think I'm going to take a little trip up to Texas Children's. See how our friend, Amira's doing…" he ventures.

Hotch stares, not happy at this new development. He is even less happy that everyone, even Garcia, who has come along for this case, is on board with this idea.

"I'll meet you at the airport," he says brusquely, excusing himself.

It's a full 60 seconds before Rossi is behind him. "Hotch. I would never force you into something you're not ready for but I think this is something we all need. Will you think about it?"

"Rossi, I don't _have_ to think about it!" Hotch snaps. "All I do is think about it! I think about it and I dream about it and damn it if it isn't always Jack I see when we get to that dump site to rescue whoever's left!" He stops, steadies himself and tries to compose himself but there are tears at the back of his eyes, threatening. He is not emotional, but he feels this deeply. This case. This loss.

No one knows that he stayed for the funeral of the three siblings. No one knows that Hotch stayed long after the other mourners dispersed. He needed a moment alone, to apologize, for not getting there sooner. For not knowing. The image of the three tiny caskets is branded in his mind and thinking about them makes his throat swell closed.

Because when his ex-wife died, Jack could have been right beside her. It could have been Jack. Then he might have found his own son in a similar condition to these children. Dead, because he was not fast enough to get to them.

Rossi just stands there, looking Hotch in the eye, unashamed to bear witness to this kind of emotion. The tears that are falling despite Aaron's best efforts. He just waits. Just listens.

"Dave, I swear, I don't know what to do…I can't look at my own child without seeing those kids. Where's the justice in what we do when three kids die like this? When a whole family is slaughtered just because some criminal gets pissed off and decides to play God?"

When Rossi finally speaks, it's softly, gently. He lays a hand on Hotch's shoulder and looks him right in the eye, so that Hotch can't miss the emotion written on Rossi's face. "I think…" he muses, "that you're looking at this all wrong." He pauses. "Don't look for justice here, because justice fails us once in a while. There is nothing right about what those kids went through or what your family went through. Focus on the miracles. Against all odds, your son survived. He was in that house a long time. Plenty long enough to be discovered, but he wasn't. Something protected him. Amira was the youngest…the smallest of all those children. There's no logical reason why she stayed alive, but she _is_ and so is Jack."

It's Hotch's turn to be silent. To just listen. So he tries. He does.

"You can't focus on the losses. I mean, grieve it. Feel it. But know that in spite of everything, you have a miracle waiting at home for you. Don't forget that."

* * *

><p>The seven of them move quietly as they ever would on any crime scene. They have abandoned their FBI vests, their weapons - anything that might set off the metal detectors or deny them access to the patient they have come to see.<p>

"This is cute, huh?" JJ says in a hushed voice, holding out a stuffed teddy bear. Without waiting for a response, she takes it with her as she continues to browse. Spencer is across the way eyeing balloons. Garcia is clutching the photo that she insisted on taking of them. Now she has it pressed against a wall and is scrawling their names on the back. Derek hangs back, waiting with Rossi for the actual visiting to begin. He steels himself for it. Emily is beside Hotch. Together, they study the selection of cards.

Finally, Hotch chooses one. It has a funny cartoon on it - something that will make Amira smile. After they pay for the bear, the giant red heart balloon and the card, Emily takes their collection and fishes out the card. She signs it simply.

_LOVE, THE GOOD GUYS._

Then, Garcia tucks the photo inside, and at the last minute, Hotch and Rossi pull out their checkbooks. These, along with a hastily scrawled note from Hotch, are added to the envelope. Everything is sealed inside.

* * *

><p>The PICU is silent, except for the beeping of monitors. For all the children here, there are no children's voices to be heard at all.<p>

Aaron's breath catches as he approaches the private room where little Amira is located. There is a security guard outside her door. This has become quite the news story and gifts and cards have come in from everywhere. So, it seems, have offers to adopt the sweet little girl with no one to care for her.

They flash their credentials and are allowed inside. An exception is made, and all of them are admitted at once, rather than one at a time. Hotch is glad for this. He does not think he could handle this visit alone.

Amira lies in the bed, asleep. There is no ventilator anymore. She is able to breathe on her own.

Emily bravely approaches the bed and takes the little girl's hand in her own. The child doesn't stir. "Hey, brave girl. It's Emily. You keep getting better, okay?" she whispers. Then, she steps away, blinking back tears, and excusing herself to stand at the back of the room.

Tentatively, the rest follow suit. Spencer tells her he hopes she likes the balloon and that she keeps improving every day. JJ tucks the bear in the crook of Amira's arm and presses a kiss to her forehead, not speaking a word. Garcia is in floods of tears but manages to choke out what an awesome job Amira is doing at this whole getting better business. Rossi simply comes up and whispers reassurances so soft that no one else can hear them. Derek shocks them all when he simply sits in the chair at the bedside, bows his head and moves his lips in a silent prayer for her.

Finally, it's just Hotch. They are all still there, but he is the only one who has yet to say anything.

"Hi, Amira," he says softly, approaching the side of the bed where Derek vacated. He does not touch her, respecting her personal space, even though it's clear to him that she is on some heavy painkillers that are probably helping keep her asleep.

"My name is Aaron. I want you to know that I think about you every day, and that I'll always be here for you if you need something in the future. So will my friends. See, we're all like a big family. And now? You're a part of that family. So even if many years pass and you're all grown up but you find you need something, I want you to call me. It's all in the letter, if you ever forget. We love you, honey."

Aaron swallows convulsively. Amira is so small in the hospital bed. Her tiny body barely disturbing the blankets covering her. He takes a deep breath, and focuses on her face. On her eyes.

Then they open. They are darker than Aaron expected. For a minute, she stares at him drowsily and then reaches out to grasp his fingers. Her grip is strong.

Just like that, she lets go and her eyes fall closed. She's asleep again, but now Aaron is sure.

She heard him. She heard them all. And she will be okay.

Slowly, he turns to face his team, and sees them waiting for him.

They leave together, but their hope and their prayers remain behind, with the miracle they helped save.


End file.
